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We are both physicists and work as researchers at universities, consequently we have been accused of not living in the real world. Well we have some news... we do live in the real world; it's all you folks that worry about politics and economics who don't. :-)

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Friday, April 08, 2005

Look, tax is a necessary evil. I have no problem in paying tax but let's face it, I'm not going to complain if I don't have to pay. However, why does the tax return have to be so complicated and written in a foreign language? I am convinced that there is just no need.Now, all other problems with filing aside, there is one thing that really gets my goat (and sheep, come to that):

Delayed Filing.

If I want, I can request to extend my filing deadline. Now since the UK tax year runs from April to April, not in a calendar year, there are circumstances where this might have been useful. However it turns out that I can not extend the deadline by which I have to pay tax that I might owe, even though I might need to have my UK tax sorted to calculate how much I owe to the US. No, that's not possible, sensible, but not possible. Instead I would have to pay whatever I thought I owed and then file an amended return to claim back what I didn't actually owe. Thus creating more paperwork and causing more mantime in processing.

Your tax dollar at work!

UPDATE: I have been informed that my moaning about tax is putting people off and is, quite frankly, boring. Therefore I shall endeavour not to mention US tax forms again. Of course, I have been asked to file for this year in the UK and so I may always bitch about that in the near future... ;-)